2011 Art Music Awards - Winners of Distinguished Services to Australian Music announced
Thursday, 28 April 2011
Having recently announced the finalists in nine national Art Music Award categories, Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) and the Australian Music Centre (AMC) are delighted to release names of the recipients of the 2011 AWARD FOR DISTINGUISHED SERVICES TO AUSTRALIAN MUSIC.
The recipients of this Award are determined by the Board of Directors of APRA and the AMC, and this year, the honour of DISTINGUISHED SERVICES TO AUSTRALIAN MUSIC is shared between two outstanding and inspiring members of the Australian music community, JOHN HOPKINS OBE and PATRICK THOMAS MBE.
One of Australia’s most esteemed conductors and administrators, British-born John Hopkins OBE was the youngest chief conductor of the BBC Orchestra at age 24. On settling in Australia, Hopkins became recognised as an innovator. As Federal Director of Music for the ABC, he initiated a concert series featuring avant-garde works by international composers as well as actively championed the work of Australian artists Peter Sculthorpe, Nigel Butterley and Richard Meale. Hopkins has conducted the Melbourne and Sydney Symphony Orchestras, and completed numerous overseas tours to conduct orchestras from Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, the USSR, Canada, the USA, South Africa and Japan. Other career highs include becoming the founding Dean of the College of Music at the Victorian College of the Arts, and enjoying a six-year tenure as Director of Sydney Conservatorium of Music. John Hopkins is currently Convenor of Conducting and an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the School of Music at the University of Melbourne.
Orchestral conductor, flautist and writer, Patrick Thomas MBE has had a distinguished career in music spanning 60 years. Originally from Brisbane, Thomas made some of his first appearances as a flautist with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and eventually went on to become the orchestra’s only ever homegrown chief conductor thus far. He founded and conducted the Patrick Thomas Singers in Brisbane and in 1964 went on to be appointed resident conductor of the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust Opera Company and the Australian Ballet. Thomas has worked with numerous Australian orchestras and was guest conductor internationally with the Moscow Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio Orchestra among others. Throughout his life he has remained a fierce advocate for new music and Australian talent and in 1998 he was the first Australian conductor to become an honorary life member of the Fellowship of Australian Composers. In 2010, Thomas published a book of autobiography and poetry Upbeats and downbeats: a conductor's life (2010).
APRA and the AMC warmly congratulate Patrick Thomas and John Hopkins on their immense achievements and commend them for their ongoing contribution to musical life in Australia.
The 2011 Art Music Awards will be hosted by Julian Morrow of ABC TV’s The Chaser, and will feature very special live performances from a selection of Award finalists.
The Sydney Chamber Choir, will perform Deserts of Exile, a piece composed and conducted by internationally recognised composer and two-time Art Music Awards finalist Paul Stanhope. Deserts of Exile is taken from Stanhope’s Exile Lamentations choral cycle which features a tapestry of choral sounds and solos set against contemporary text from poet Jabra Ibrahim Jabra (translated from the original Arabic into English) and fragments of Lamentations of Jeremiah (sung in Latin).
JAZZ WORK OF THE YEAR finalist Johannes Luebbers will take to the stage with one of Perth’s most exciting jazz ensembles, the Johannes Luebbers Dectet, to deliver his piece Ashes to Ashes.
Damien Ricketson’s beautifully crafted work Fractured Againwill be performed by the twice nominated Ensemble Offspring. The original work is based on the concept of glass instruments such as a glass harmonica and combines the use of standard instruments. Their Art Music Awards performance will be an excerpt from the work for percussion (Claire Edwardes), clarinet (Jason Noble) and violin (Sophie Cole) with video.
Finally, the 2011 Art Music Awards will also feature the innovative musical explorations of the Clocked Out ensemble, finalists in two categories: PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR – with Speak Percussion, and AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE BY AN ORGANISATION OR INDIVIDUAL. Clocked Out directors Erik Griswold and Vanessa Tomlinson make piano, percussion, and toy instruments their sonic playground and they have created a new form that draws elements from community art, environmentalism, acoustic ecology, experimental music and installation.
In addition, the Art Music Awards will present an interactive sound installation of the sound work Constellation: a durational chamber work, by finalists for EXCELLENCE IN EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC, Madeline Flynn and Tim Humphrey.
Special guest presenters on the evening will include Liz Terracini , Jonathon Zwartz, Nigel Westlake , Kate Lidbetter, Ben Northey. Matthew Hindson and Martin Buzacott.
2011 ART MUSIC AWARDS
Tuesday 3rd May 2011
Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay
Hosted by Julian Morrow
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